Mayor Julian Castro to Obama: Grant Temporary Amnesty to Family Members of DREAMers

15 Apr 2014

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro wants President Barack Obama to give temporary amnesty to illegal immigrants whose family members are U.S. citizens.

Castro, considered a potential vice presidential candidate for Democrats in 2016, believes Obama should extend the deferred action even more to those over 30 years of age and who may not have come to the country as children.

“We should look at people who have been here for more than ten years, who do not have a serious criminal record and who have family members who are United States citizens,” Castro said in an interview before his debate Tuesday with Texas Lieutenant Governor candidate Dan Patrick. “My hope is that President Obama extends what he did with DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] for the DREAMers to ease deportations for people without serious criminal records who have families in the United States.”

Obama, through executive fiat, gave temporary amnesty and work permits last year to the children of illegal immigrants who are under 30 years of age, came to this country before they were 16 years of age, and meet other qualifications.

Castro, an American of Mexican descent, keynoted the 2012 Democratic National Convention and heads, according to Fox News Latino, the seventh most populous city in the country with 1.3 million people, 63 percent of whom are Hispanic.

After broad amnesty legislation lost momentum in Congress, amnesty activists have been pressuring Obama to take more unilateral actions to stop deportations and grant more forms of amnesty to illegal immigrants.